ChristmasSpecials

Q: What is the best media representation of Santa Claus's origin? -- @pbarb

A: I'll be honest with you, folks: I love Santa Claus almost as much as I love Batman. In fact, I'm pretty sure the only reason the Caped Crusader gets the edge over Jolly Old St. Nick is that nobody's out there publishing five monthly comics about his continuing adventures. As a result of that egregious oversight, I'm not as familiar with Santa's various origins as I probably should be. There are, however, two origins for Santa Claus that I like an awful lot, despite the fact that they're so different from each other that they could almost be about two completely unrelated characters.

Should you ever need a reminder that the 1990s were a strange, strange time, look no further than We Wish You a Turtle Christmas. Released in 1994 at the height of that hazy, pre-Pokemon era when when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise reigned as the most popular thing in the entire world, Turtle Christmas was a 25-minute video in which the Turtles sang Christmas songs about themselves.

If that sounds weird, believe me that it's actually even weirder. So today, deck the sewer walls and wash that pizza down with eggnog as we take a look back at this holiday classic, and the great many questions it raises just by its very existence.

Chris: Hello, everybody! Over the past couple of weeks, we've been taking a look at the Japanese Spider-Man show, but in this special holiday season, we thought it might be fun to fast forward a bit...

Chris Sims: Hello everyone, and welcome back to our series of in-depth reviews of movies based on comics. This week, though, we're doing something a little different! With Christmas just around the corner, we wanted to hit something holiday-themed, and while we debated checking out the Star Wars Holiday Special or one of the three - three! - Christmas episodes of Lois and Clark, we eventually found something that interested us a little more.

Matt Wilson: Our choice came down to continuing our '90s trend with the Christmas episode of The Mask cartoon or the Christmas episode of the 1970s Wonder Woman TV show. Only one of these choices, Wonder Woman, had Frank Gorshin in a guest-starring role, so we went with that one.

Q: Why does everyone hate the "Christmas with the Joker" episode of Batman: The Animated Series? -- @tekende

A: You know, I'm not sure everyone does hate "Christmas with the Joker." I certainly don't, but then again, I can't really say that I like it a whole lot either. It's definitely one of those episodes that pops into mind whenever I start thinking of the worst episodes of the series, although it misses out on being the actual worst by a long shot. But that said, I don't quite know the reason why.

Q: What '80s or '90s cartoon do you think has the single best Christmas episode? -- @UncannyJay

A: Given the things I tend to write about in this column, it pretty much goes without saying that I absolutely love cartoon Christmas specials. I even wrote about a few of my favorites last year for ComicsAlliance, including the truly bizarre Christmas Comes to Pac-Land, in which a visit from Santa Claus makes it abundantly clear that Pac-Man's living nightmare of eating dots and being menaced by the vengeful spirits of the damned occurs on some kind of demi-plane that exists outside of the sight of God. That one has to be in my top three.

But beyond those three, there's definitely one Christmas episode in particular that I absolutely love: G.I. Joe's "Cobra Claws Are Coming To Town!"

I haven't actually watched an episode of Power Rangers in around two decades. If there's one thing I love at this time of year, however, it's a Christmas Special, so when I saw that Power Rangers Super Samurai: Stuck On Christmas had been added to Netflix Instant, I was delighted...

As you might expect, Santa Claus is a fixture in Christmas comics, but he's rarely having a very good time of it. At the very least, he tends to need help saving Christmas from just not happening, and often, he's in pretty bad shape himself...

The holidays are here, and on War Rocket Ajax, that means only one thing: Special guest Matt Fraction joining us for our annual Christmas party! We talk a little about his comics, including Hawkeye and the upcoming Sex Criminals, then we discuss the best (and worst) Christmas songs, movies, specials and comics in a yuletide spectacular the likes of which have never been seen -- and you can listen to the whole thing right here at ComicsAlliance...

This week, ComicsAlliance is proud contractually obligated to bring you The Third Annual War Rocket Ajax Christmas Special! It's the season of miracles as hosts Chris Sims and Matt Wilson have a holiday team-up with special guests Matt Fraction and Adam Warrock to bring our listeners a podcast featuring a track-by-track review of the Christmas album by the Insane Clown Posse...

Rogues' Gallery

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